Sky and BT climb after football TV rights auction

Shares in both Sky and BT climbed on Wednesday morning after news the groups were set to pay significantly less per game to broadcast top-tier football matches from 2019. Sky won three of the first four packages of broadcast rights sold after a five-day auction, with bidding set to continue for some remaining matches. The Premier League said the matches sold so far were worth £4.46bn, significantly less than the £5.1bn secured for all matches in the last rights auction. Shares in Sky were up 3.2 per cent at publication time, making it the second-strongest performer on the FTSE 100 index. Shares in BT rose 1 per cent at the open, before pulling back to a 0.5 per cent rise.